The Definition of ESB as 2006 Ends

People have been using the term ESB — short for Enterprise Service Bus — for quite a few years now. Despite that, there continues to be enormous confusion over what the term means. This confusion stems from the fact that people have overloaded the term ESB and are using it to mean two different things. When people talk about ESBs, they are either talking about ESB products (ESBp) or ESB implementations (ESBi). No one can sell you an ESB implementation, just as no one can sell you an SOA. However, you can and should buy products that help to implement this design pattern.